


Have Faith In Me

by thedreamerdelta



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: (it's him he's the relic), And Maybe Cried A Little, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Casual Disregard For Unripped Clothing, F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Inappropriate Use of Allagan Relics, Mild D/s mechanics, Mirror Sex, Not Beta Read, Oneshot, POV Second Person, Patch 5.2: Echoes of a Fallen Star Spoilers, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Devotion, Spoilers, Sweet Nothings and Flowery Words, Teleportation, Vaginal Fingering, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:54:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25686904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedreamerdelta/pseuds/thedreamerdelta
Summary: After dealing with entirely too much trouble in the Source, you return to the First, trying to find respite from your burdens.The Exarch is more than happy to volunteer his services.Merely to help you relax, of course. What else?
Relationships: G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Reader, G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 21
Kudos: 153





	Have Faith In Me

**Author's Note:**

> I said I'd never let you go, and I never did.  
> I said I'd never let you fall, and I always meant it.  
> If you didn't have this chance, then I never did.  
> You'll always find me right there - again.
> 
> \- A Day To Remember, _Have Faith In Me_

The master and commander of the Crystal Tower had but one task to fulfill. He didn’t expect an entire city to be built around the base, nor a community to be built around him. Of course, he wasn’t exactly upset about it - quite the opposite, if it helped to save the First. The people needed someone to look to, and he was more than willing (and able) to oblige. 

But when all was said and done, he was here for the Warrior of Light. 

So attuned he was to your presence that you had only just come through the portal when he had rushed to your side.

“My friend, it is good to see you well once more,” he says later as the two of you lean over one of the Crystarium’s upper balconies, watching the thinning crowds below. The stars shone brightly overhead, and the city’s residents were mostly in bed at this time of night. The remainder of its citizens were finishing up last minute shopping and grooming their mounts before they retired themselves.

As much as his body might protest the following day, he found himself unable to waste a single opportunity to spend every waking moment with you that he could.

“I don’t know if ‘well’ is the right word to use,” you admit. “I feel so... overburdened, lately.” With the Scions’ very souls riding on your ability to bring them back from the First, the disastrous debacle that was the Ruby Weapon, and the new Bozjan battlefront you had found yourself somehow defending, you’ve had rarely had the time to rest.

He grips you firmly by the shoulder and tugged you into a hug so tight, so tender, you couldn’t help but relax. It was the most amazing thing, the warmest of emotions you had felt in eons.

“You’re always carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, my friend.” he says softly, rubbing one hand up and down your back while the other tangled through your hair. “My inspiration. You always have been. I wish-” He hesitates, the only tell of nervousness, then barrels on. “Let me relieve you of it, if I may, even if only for one night.”

You lean back in surprise. _Did he really-_? His eyes, burning brilliant crimson, steadily awaited your answer. 

He had waited for you nigh on a hundred years. 

A few seconds were nothing in comparison, were they not?

_He did,_ you thought faintly.  
  
No one had asked you to bed in a long, long while. Too scared of your abilities, or too burdened by their offices, or too intimidated by your titles. But… The Crystal Exarch was not wont to be intimidated by anyone. 

Did he not in fact _challenge_ you, from the very first time your paths converged, even knowing your legend? He joked and laughed, and the mismatching eyes that had followed you so joyfully never once looked at you with fear or doubt. And when he woke up, he relearned your entire story from the start to the very finish - everything you had gone through, and how it had ended. He had vowed to better his skills until he could stand by your side with pride and dignity, and his every effort showed in the movement of his footsteps, the mastery of his spells and sword and shield all turned to his ultimate goal. 

And the man had crossed time and space to save you - and by extension the world. Uniting not one but two entire peoples in the process. 

Of anyone you knew…G’raha would be able to understand what it meant to bear the expectations of so many, and the burden of carrying everyone’s culminative hopes and dreams and existence on your own two shoulders.

It was, as he had said but moons before, a weight no one person should have to bear.

You steel your heart and nod, unable to speak under the weight of his gaze. His eyes widen in disbelief, and the most beautiful, blinding, brilliant smile splits his face wide with unbridled delight. What little of his many years that had attached themselves to his face are washed away in the same boyish glee you knew him for when you first met.

“Hold tight, then,” he says, and you feel aether hum around you both. You shut your gaze against a kaleidoscope of colour, and when you open them again you are in a room similar to the Umbilicus, with brilliant blue walls lined with mounted bookshelves and furniture fit for Allagan royalty. 

“It’s so beautiful,” you gush. The ceiling goes up, up, higher than you can imagine, and the blue and gold theme throughout is nothing but spectacular in its glory.

“Is it? I must admit, I am quite pleased it meets your satisfaction,” the Exarch replies, hanging his staff on the wall’s weathered weapon rack before turning towards the bed. You drop your gear haphazardly on the floor, and he looks at you over his shoulder as the clatter focuses the weight of his stare on you.

“Sorry... Just - nerves,” you reply sheepishly.

He turns and kisses you, and warmth floods your body. Your heartbeat thrums in your ears and your mind blanks, only for a moment, and then he draws away. 

“I will ask you but once more, my friend, are you certain?” he asks, cupping your flushed cheek with careful crystalline fingers. “I will not think any less of you should you change your mind. You have my word. I bid you think carefully on it.”

You close your eyelids and exhale. 

In your mind’s eye, you see his younger self teasing a pouch of aethersand above your head. 

You see him running out of the Crystarium gates, sprinting to reach you and Lyna.  
Kneeling before you at Holminster Switch.  
Fighting alongside you in the Kholusian wilderness.

Falling, in front of a smoking musket.

Standing, staggering, still believing in you, even at the end of a world.

You blink, and you find his fiery gaze still watching you in silence. Watching, and waiting.

But not for long.

“Know this, however,” he murmurs, leaning in again, “Should you say yes - Should you give in to me, I will not cease to dismantle your thoughts and inhibitions, one by one, until you have come completely _undone_.” He punctuates the edge of his statement with a sharp bite to your neck, soothed by a gentle kiss and his soft, warm tongue.

You had already made your mind up to accept, but - really, when he puts it thus, it would be a cruelty to refuse.

“Yes.”

His carmine eyes catch yours and he looks into you with the intensity of a falling moon.

“You’ll give in?” he asks, thumb stroking your cheek carefully. “You’ll let me take care of you tonight?”

“I will,” you reply, sure of yourself now, and his smile grows feral. 

If you had thought his kiss before was intense, it was nothing compared to how his mouth feels on you now. Fiery tingling awareness spreads from every bit of you that touches him. His nails rake down your back and as you gasp he wildly presses his advantage, opening his mouth to match your own. His addictive flavor mingles with yours and as he pulls away, your mouth tries to chase his to get more- 

He pushes you away, breathing heavily, and your back hits the bookcase behind you. You wince as a hardcover of unknown origin digs into your shoulder muscle.

“Lay down on the bed,” he instructs you, bending down to swiftly unstrap his sandals.

“You were so patient earlier, G’raha,” you joke as he nearly shreds his robes in his haste to get unclothed as quickly as possible. “What happened?”

He glances over at you, then finishes toeing out of his smalls, tosses them aside uncaringly, and crawls back onto the bed. 

“Long have I awaited this - for _you_ \- for far more years than one person was meant to survive. And I am beyond tired of being _patient_.” You blink. His voice had taken on almost a guttural, gravelly tone as he began to undo your laces with hurried, delicate movements. “I have waited, and waited, and-” He cuts himself off, frustrated with your belts, and examines the material. 

“Do...you need help?” you ask faintly, attempting to conceal your slight nervousness (and growing arousal with every syllable he bit out - How was his voice doing that to you?).

“What I _need_ ,” he says sharply, casting an unknown spell on your layers, “is for you to _relax!_ ” The robe finishes glowing, and then with a sharp rip his crystalline hand _tears_ it off you entirely.

You feel your mouth grow dry as he looks over your bare body hungrily, ravishing you without even a touch.

Yet.

G’raha caresses your quivering skin gently and presses a soft kiss to your stomach. “What I desire,” he says once more, slightly softer, “is nothing more than for you to give in and allow me to relieve you of your burdens.” He feels for the edges of your underthings and pulls them down slowly with a sharp smile, revealing the last remaining piece of you that had been hidden from him.

“To, for once in your life, allow yourself to be given over to pleasure.” He bends his head down over your body once more.

“To think of naught but my tongue on your skin,” he says with another gentle press of his mouth to your abdomen.

“My hands on your flesh.” His hands grip your hips tightly and drag you closer towards him with unprecedented strength from one so slight.

“And the ecstasy in your mind,” he finishes, and closes his mouth around you. 

* * *

  
  


The Exarch holds you in his arms later as you both catch your breath.

“But I’m really _not_ anyone special, G’raha,” you protest. “I joined a guild and then trouble just... found me. No matter where I went.” 

He looks at you with surprise, then dismay, and then the closest thing to disapproval you have ever seen from him crosses his face.

“Turn over, until your weight rests upon your arms and legs,” he commands, moving you off of his chest and getting up from the bed.

You do as you are bid.

“Now don’t move a muscle.”

You look up at him in confusion. 

“Not a _muscle_ , I said-” He grips your chin firmly, with authority. “Can you do that for me?”

_Is this okay?_ His eyes asked.

You take a deep breath, and nod. 

“How long?” you ask hesitantly.

“Until you see yourself the way that I see you,” he promises with a kiss. 

  
  


* * *

“In daylight the Warrior of Darkness belongs to the worlds, and the people have taken her as their champion,” he says solemnly, steadily, as if narrating from one of his endless collection of tomes lining the walls, or making one of his rare grandiose speeches. His calloused hand kneads up and down your pliant flesh, and massages with fervor at the tense muscles in your back, even as a crystalline finger moves gently in and out of you ever so slowly. 

The combined sensations have your mind spinning. 

Nevertheless, he _had_ told you to keep _still._

And some part of you - unforeseen, inexplicable - intrinsically _yearned_ to do as he bid. Your legs tremble with the effort.

Heedless of your internal conflicted monologue, the Exarch continues. “As another sun rises, another devotee pledges their name to your cause for the work you have done.” Adding another finger, he turns his muscular attentions from your back to your legs, peppering sweet kisses to them as he does so. 

“The endless labors you have undertaken. The toils you have suffered.” He scissors his fingers within your entrance, stretching you as best he can, and you whimper as your thighs shake with the task of keeping motionless for him. “At _any_ other time I might permit them to cloud your thoughts, completely unacceptable though the thought of your suffering may be,” he says, withdrawing his digits from your entrance. 

You hear the faint, wet sounds of him sucking them clean with a lewd _pop_ , and the mere mental image makes you wish fervently that you were not face _down_ on all fours on the Exarch’s luxurious covers, but rather on your back where you could have watched him instead.

“But for tonight? I will have _none_ of their interference.” He lines himself up with your entrance and leans over you. “Tonight, you’re _mine_ ,” he growls in your ear, and you groan at the feeling of his head breaching you, the stretch and bump from the rim sinking deep into your slick opening, and then a _push_ as he bottoms out with a single languid thrust.

You sigh, the overwhelming feeling of _full_ and _right_ overpowering all other senses.

Little did you know _this_ was what you had wanted, for far too long now.

It was almost too good to be real.

G’raha takes a moment to steady himself, and at what little he can see of the rapturous look on your face, his expression softens with adoration.

“Look at you,” he says reverently as his hips continue to draw his warm length in and out of your tight heat. “Taking me so well, aren’t you, my Warrior. My inspiration. My brilliant guiding star, shining ever so brightly for me.” He caresses you with every word, his hands both crystalline and non practically worshiping you with their passionate touches. “Don't worry, you can move now. You’ve been such a good girl for me, haven’t you?”

As he effuses you with praise on every thrust, you try in vain to muffle the embarrassing noises coming from your lips that echo endlessly louder within the vaulted ceiling, but he drags your hand away from your mouth.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” the Exarch commands softly, pulling your arms behind your back and pinning you to the soft mattress below you. “Do not stifle your cries. I went for too long without hearing your voice, my friend. Now, I would have your all - every single lovely sound that comes from your beautiful lips.” He pants with the exertion, but you are in no illusion as to who is really in charge.

Eikon-slayer or not, liberator of kingdoms or not, you have no power here.

“I- _ngh-_ don’t want anyone to hear,” you halfheartedly protest as you twist around in an attempt to look up over your shoulder at him. The muscles in your legs tremble from the effort of keeping your weight on them in the face of so much sensation.

“Did I not say to relinquish your burdens?” he asks sternly, letting one hand free to tangle in your hair before it grips what strands he can reach and _pulls_ sharply once before letting go. Your breath hitches as the shock of the pain goes right through from your crown to pulsate where the two of you are joined. “They will not hear you. This is _my_ tower, and only _I_ alone am privileged to be privy to its immeasurable secrets.” He grips you tight and pulls you back further onto him as he leans over your back, and you cry out with the altered angle. 

“This is _my_ dominion, and you alone its beloved provincial treasure. I would hear your _screams_.” With your hands held behind you by his strong grip, you are helpless to do naught but moan loudly into the pillows as he harshly rocks into you, somehow deeper than he had been before. 

“Y-you, ah- _ahh_ -” your voice breaks.

G’raha _had_ promised to render you completely undone, hadn’t he?

He was certainly well on his way to getting you there.

The soft touch of his silken covers surrounding you would drive you crazy, even without his cock driving into you with each thrust, filling you so completely that your mind is utterly engulfed by the sensations and all you can do is _feel_. 

So deeply is your face buried into his pillows that you nearly feel yourself growing hazy from lack of air - as if you are floating higher and higher on a spiraling column of bliss, and you could go forever without oxygen if you could only live on his scent alone-

-and then G’raha lifts you up and off of the bed with ease, keeping the two of you from separating. You gasp with air, and your body is as if rejuvenated with the energy of a healing Esuna. 

“Look at yourself,” he hisses, impossibly strong arms lifting you off the covers even as he continues to keep himself warm within your wet heat. The crystal by the bed shimmers, flashes, and then - you can see the two of you in its reflection. Your hair, mussed and tangled, your eyes shot with tears, and as he kisses your cheek and behind your ear, you watch as your flush spreads with the slight feeling of self-consciousness.

Then he meets the reflection of your eyes with a _scorching_ look ablaze with passion, and even if your limbs hadn’t already been feeling wobbly and boneless before, they definitely were now as he withdraws - leisurely, now, not nearly the pace he was before - and enters you once more as your thighs tremble. 

“Look at yourself,” he repeats, straining only slightly with the exertion of slowly lifting you on and off his length, slick with your juices. “Look at how radiant you are on my cock.” 

In, and out.

“How beautiful you are when you cry out for me.” He kisses your neck, gently at first - and then you shout as he marks you so viciously in contrast to his soft thrusts, sucking a dark bruise into the skin that you know will last for _days,_ biting again and again into the meat of your shoulder before soothing the rough marks with his tongue - and you have never felt so _claimed_ in your life.

Still - his glacial pace continued, unabated.

In, and out.

Teasing.

Squirming, you whine at him in your impatience.

(After all, it wasn’t _you_ who’d been waiting for a century.)

“Shall I go faster?” The smirk he wears for you is reminiscent of the past - of the goading tone and baiting words in the Gridanian forests - and yet a hundred times more powerful. “Will you have yet more of me?” 

You and your reflection nod, frantically, and G’raha lifts you off of him and down onto the bed - on your back again this time - as the mirage disappears. 

Whimpering, you grasp at him desperately as he leans in with a savage grin and continues, “I think I shall have you _beg_ me for it.”

The rumble in his command _tingles_ as it goes through you to rekindle that fire within, and your mouth feels as dry as the dunes of Sagolii. He enters you once more, no more quickly than before, expectantly awaiting your obedient response. “Well?” 

If he doesn’t go any faster, you think to yourself, you’re going to go insane.

“Please,” your voice says, unrecognizably timid.

“Please, _what?”_ the Exarch replies fiercely, staring into your eyes. 

You keen in frustration as he begins to toy with your clit, only barely, enough to keep your attention held as sparks fly through you. 

“If you wish for me to go faster, you need only to call my name,” he guides you, as your mind tries desperately not to white out. 

But - you were given a command, and you wanted to see him look at you like _that_ again, even for a moment.

“Please, G’raha,” you whisper weakly up at him.

His flowing hair is partially stuck to his skin, the undone strands of his braid painting red and light-tipped lines to contrast with blue-and-gold crystal proof of the tower’s immortal grasp. Trails of sweat bead down his chest glint and catch the light coming from somewhere in the room, only making him shine brighter. 

Despite the brilliant blue crystal you are surrounded with and the gleaming gold designs of the Allagans in every corner - you think, If there is anything radiant in this room, it is most certainly G’raha Tia.

He shakes his head at you, cock slipping in and out slowly as he surely exits you entirely on each shallow thrust. His hand reaches up and pinches your nipple sharply, and a shock jolts through you as you cry out once more.

“No. My _name_ , treasured one. No more, no less. _Unadorned_. I would hear it fall from your lips.” 

Despite the tingling still coursing through your veins with every touch of his hands, you knew he wanted an answer, and sooner rather than later. But you were still confused. Wasn’t-

Oh.

You remember, suddenly, a stern lecture from Y’shtola, some moons ago, when you had asked her about her sister “Mhitra”, and- 

_Oh._

-understanding dawns on you.

Was he... There’s no way he was serious, was there?

You look up and meet his eyes,  
rivalling the divine in their glory -  
and in this single, shining, frozen fractal of fragmented time  
permanently imprinted upon the reels of your memory -  
you will forever know the color of intent as a beautiful, glowing carmine.

Never had you met anyone like him, you think to yourself, nor will you ever again.

You open your mouth - and call him by his name.

“...Raha?”

His rhythm stutters, his eyes blown wide open, and his hands grip you so tightly as to leave bruises.

“Again,” he chokes out, and slams into you hard enough that you can not help but know you will feel it in the morn - perhaps the entire day if he continues at this rate.

“Raha~” you cry out, and the Miqo’te looks as if he could nearly weep in joy.

“Yes, that’s it that’s _it-”_ he says viciously, _victoriously_ , as he pounds into you with vigor renewed. “Ah, I would have you call my name, forever, until the end of _time-_ ” 

He adjusts his angle again, pushing your legs up in a way you honestly would have thought to be unmanageable - Warrior of Light or not - and presses in once more, somehow impossibly, _wonderfully_ deeper. 

“And then,” he pants. “Then I shall bend time and space _anew_ to retrieve you,” G’raha professes with immutable conviction, clenching his eyes shut as he picks his rhythm back up to where it had been, “even if only to make you call out for _me_ , _only_ for me, again and again, until all knowledge of any other words has fled your mind entirely.”

Heedless of the furniture’s protests, he pounds into you even more vigorously, your mouth no longer capable of even words as naught but garbled sounds escape your lips. The ancient bed's frame creaks with his efforts and it is all you can do to keep yourself in the moment, in _this_ moment, for however long it will last, for who knows what tomorrow will bring? The swiftly passing time is a chainless binder of your every moment, and as you look up at the very person who mastered it to save you, you can not help but wish that it would last an eternity. 

Yet, for all your efforts to outlast him, he has always been one to follow through on his promises. You cry out his name again as the building pleasure becomes too much for you to bear, and as it leaves you like a benediction into the abyss of ecstasy he follows closely behind - as he always has done - and comes with a strangled whisper of your name, warm spurts filling your inner core. 

He collapses on top of you, careful not to put too much weight on your chest, and holds you in his arms as though you were something precious, and not a weapon to be wielded.

It is everything you never knew you needed.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, eventually.

“Better. Blown away.” Examining yourself, you wince and admit, “...Bruised,” with a tired smile.

He glances down, noticing all of the marks he had left on you, and his face turns comically stricken.

“Ah- my apologies..." he stutters and trails off as you shake your head.

“It’s fine,” you say, then with a flash of mischief you wink at him playfully. “I’ll have something to remember you by.”

He sheepishly ducks his chin, hiding a pleased expression, then kisses you - gently, passionately - before extricating his softening member from you. You wince at the feeling. 

“I shall return shortly. Wait here.” He kisses you briefly once more and walks through a side door you hadn’t seen before. You hear the sound of running water.

G’raha comes back with a wet cloth. “You did _such_ a good job for me.” He coos praises as he wipes your tired brow of sweat. “So well.”

The cool rag does nothing to stop your cheeks turning pink. You mutter unintelligibly, embarrassed yet too exhausted to even protest as he continues further south and cleans the rest of your combined mess as well. 

Closing your eyes, you feel his weight leave the bed once more. 

His footsteps echo within the vaulted ceiling, and the rhythm lulls you further towards your fast approaching slumber.

The Exarch shakes you out of your heady daze, having returned to you with a glass full of water. 

“Here, sit up and drink this,” he says, holding it to your lips and-

Sudden realization and doubt clouds his face and freezes his limbs.  
He recalls the written tales of a sordid banquet, of friends lost in flight, of a riot in the Coerthan winters.  
  
Mentally cursing, he readies himself to retract the offer-

-and you drain the water from it with nary a question.

It is all he can do to not crush the empty vessel in his hand as he sets it on the side table.

The sheer overwhelming magnitude of your trust nearly moves him to tears.

He scoots under the covers next to you, willing his emotions to get themselves in check.

“Raha,” you mumble sleepily. 

A jolt goes through him, as it had the very first time you said his private name, and he chuckles gently. He caresses your cheek, ever so slightly, and presses a kiss to your forehead. “That’s my good girl,” he whispers with the softest of pleased smiles and tired eyes as he wraps his arms tightly around you once more. 

_Mine_ , G’raha wonders to himself, incredulous.

Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought he could say _that_.

You burrow yourself deeper into the safety of his warmth, and let yourself be swept away to the most relaxing sleep since time immemorial.

Tomorrow would be a new day, with burdens old and fresh alike, but you had faith that you could face it - together.

~ fin ~

**Author's Note:**

> > Call him by his name.
> 
> This work is dedicated to a certain someone's very excellent drawings, a very wonderful video of Grand Cosmos footage, & all the people in the [bookclub](https://discord.gg/YgkDStS) who have consistently been a boundless font of wisdom and motivation. If you like fanfiction, write fanfiction, read fanfiction, or any combination of the above, [come and check us out](https://discord.gg/YgkDStS)!
> 
> I hope all of our horrible 5.3 theories are **all completely wrong**  
>  and **nothing bad happens to anyone**  
>  ~~(except maybe elidibus he can leave us and our soulmate's body the fuck alone)~~
> 
>  _I SWEAR if they l'cie and/or possess the Exarch i will just die_  
>  The 5.3 trailer still scares me to bits even though it's absolutely gorgeous


End file.
